How do the new Passive Safety Options work

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KeyPOST includes functionality to ensure you design passive safety structures (updated in version 4). This adds extra choices for designers who may not be familiar with BS EN 12767:2019

It can be confusing to navigate KeyPOST to ensure you have designed a structure that meets all of your requirements. This is quite apart from navigating the European Standard BS EN 12767:2019 ‘ Passive safety of support structures for road equipment – Requirements, classification and test methods’.

It is important that you familiarise yourself with the Standard if you are to successfully specify passively safe sign support products and the overall design if the structure. Note that it is possible, even when using passively safe products, to design a structure that will not be forgiving in the event of a collision.

KeyPOST is designed to test the structural elements of a sign installation against structural safety, and also that it meets passive safety (PS) criteria. The selected criteria can be applied to the structure as a whole, or as requirements when using the AutoPost ‘suggest’ facility. You may set the PS requirements as options (or properties) of the proposal, or you can set the criteria as restrictions for AutoPost process.

Within AutoPost, there are some subtleties that can be missed if you aren’t too familiar with the Standard. It is important to recognise that, whilst passive safety is often desirable, and can reduce installation costs since there will be no need to install safety fence to protect the structure, it may not always be possible. This can be due to a combination of wind load, sign dimensions (including mass) and the need for sign illumination. KeyPOST can be directed to suggest structurally sound solutions that may not be PS.

AutoPost includes a small drop-down list providing for you to decide whether AutoPost should only suggest PS arrangements or should give a range of solutions with and without PS posts. This gives you flexibility to determine whether a PS structure is achievable and, if not, to output suitable structures in any case.